James Syhabout is clenching his left fist repeatedly, gently squeezing a wad of sticky rice.

"This is how you eat," he begins, his hand still casually pulsating.

We're sitting in East Oakland's Vientian Cafe on a sultry, sweaty night. The Laotian/Thai restaurant is seemingly plopped down in a residential area.

With his right hand, Syhabout plucks a clump of rice off the top and, using the sticky rice almost like a tortilla chip, deftly scoops up a handful of fiery kaeng nor mai (bamboo stew salad) and casually puts it in his mouth.

Syhabout is the chef-owner behind a handful of Oakland restaurants on various levels: a fine dining destination (Commis), a gastropub (Box & Bells), an Asian street food joint (Hawker Fare), and his latest addition, the Dock at Linden Street.

He's also on a mission to spread the gospel of eating with your hands.

Family style

"Growing up, how we ate as a family was very communal," he says. His family shared a basket of sticky rice in the middle of a table. Fish and meat were served on the bone. The utensil was a piece of food, be it sticky rice or lettuce cups.

Recently, Syhabout changed the dinner format at Hawker Fare, eliminating rice bowls in favor of shared plates for communal eating, many of which can be eaten by hand: crisp tamarind caramel ribs on the bone; laab nuea diep, beef tartare and tripe to be stuffed into mint-studded lettuce leaves; and nam prik noom, a charred shallot and green chile dip eaten with sticky rice.

The menu at Dock, his new restaurant and bar in the Linden Street Brewery, offers many beer-friendly dishes designed to be enjoyed without a fork: curry chicken thighs with roti; fried fennel and onion petals; scallions with romesco; linguica corn dogs.

"I want to encourage people to experiment. It's not a right or wrong thing to eat with your hands, but for me, eating with your hands is more satisfying. There's more of a connection with the food."

Although Syhabout offers utensils at both restaurants, "Eating with your hands is something our ancestors did," he says, "no matter where you're from."

Indeed, from pizza to tacos, nearly every culture can lay a claim to eating with hands. And in the Bay Area, many embrace it.

Caterer and Indian cooking teacher Nalini Mehta, who also teaches Ayurveda, points out how the traditional Hindu healing practice links food with holistic well-being.

"Part of Ayurveda talks about what makes food connect," Mehta says. "Eating with your hands is very much of that element.

"When I eat with my hands, I think everyone at the table feels more comfortable. There's a camaraderie."

Closer to the food

There's also a physical impact, she says. Gripping food with fingers allows eaters to sense the food before it goes into the mouth. You can feel the temperature, the texture.

"Using foreign utensils, you have no sensation," Mehta says. "The sensations of different textures have a strong connection from the minute you touch."

Eating with hands is a ritual throughout India. In the south, handfuls of rice are skillfully "flung" into mouths, and dosas are eaten like burritos; to eat a crepe-like dosa with a fork and knife is sacrilege, Mehta insists. In northern India, breads are used as the vessels.

Using both hands is frowned upon, says Mehta, citing cleanliness and etiquette concerns. One hand is personal; the other is communal.

Azalina Eusope, a Malaysian street food vendor in San Francisco, says that nearly everything - even thick soups - is eaten by hand in her Mamak culture. The right hand, that is.

"You can only use the right hand to eat; the left hand is the evil hand. You don't want to be evil," she says, matter-of-factly.

To scoop food with her hand, she forms a cup with her fingers, connecting her thumb to the next three fingers. All fingers are used to mop up the final bits.

Remarks Azalina's manager, Jim Benson: "When Malaysian people do it, they don't make a mess, not even any rice bits."

Catching on

In Ethiopian and Eritrean culture, every meal centers around injera, a fermented, sponge-like flatbread. It's traditional to use just the right hand, and a maximum of three cupping fingers, says Matheos Yohannes, who has operated San Francisco's Assab Eritrean Restaurant for the past two decades. It's important to dip into the stews with the bubbly side of the bread down so that it soaks up the sauce.

Yohannes says San Francisco diners are enthusiastic when it comes to eating with their hands as a way to experience the culture.

"Most of the time, even when we offer forks and spoons, they don't accept," he says. "They want to eat the traditional way. They like to do it the way we do."

'Like eating at home'

El Mansour opened in San Francisco's Richmond District 38 years ago, serving up a menu of Moroccan classics to be eaten by hand. Today, owner Jack Tanverakul says only 10 to 15 percent of his diners request silverware. The rest are happy to dive in and pick apart a lamb shank doused in honey and almonds.

"Sometimes I'm making jokes with customers, saying it's just like eating at home," Tanverakul says. Waiters pour rose water over diners' hands to start and end the meal, often to oohs and aahs.

Which leads to another reason for eating with your hands: It's fun. Which is why some of the Bay Area's four-star restaurants have adopted hands-on courses during their tasting menus.

At Saison, where a tasting menu starts at $248, chef Joshua Skenes has been known to offer a pristine, sculpture-like salad of tiny greens and flowers, meant to be hand-plucked from their bowl. A meal at Coi often begins with chef Daniel Patterson's take on chips and dip, in a snack form of puffed brown rice crackers; it's a way to welcome diners into the restaurant, to help them relax, he says.

Christopher Kostow of the Restaurant at Meadowood sings a similar tune. His tasting menu starts with a quick succession of utensil-free canapes, then he sprinkles "hand bites" throughout the rest of the meal, often as a tie-in to the previous course.

"It takes away some of the pretension," he says.

'Normal and natural'

Kostow likes the bites so much that he now offers them in the restaurant's adjacent bar/lounge. All are designed to be eaten by hand. The price starts at $20 for a series of items like black olive meringues, Champagne-fermented vegetables and geoduck clam fritters.

"I would eat everything with my hands if I could. There's something normal and natural about it," Kostow says.

Back at Vientian Cafe, the room is abuzz with a wide variety of diners. A group of high school kids occupies a nearby table, pawing into baskets of sticky rice. A family sits at another table, kids gnawing on chicken wings. An older couple behind them devours egg rolls. At some point Jeff Mason, the sandwich maestro from Pal's Takeaway in the Mission, saunters in for a takeout order.

Syhabout pops his head up between bites of Lao-style papaya salad.

"You should write about how people really eat," he says. "This is real."

The Dock Chicken Curry

Serves 6 to 8

Chronicle staff writer Lynne Char Bennett adapted this recipe from James Syhabout, chef/owner of The Dock at Linden Street in Oakland. Syhabout serves the curry with house-made roti. At the restaurant, Syhabout recommends tearing or cutting the chicken into chunks, and then creating wraps or "tacos."

1 tablespoon + 2 teaspoons Madras curry, about 1/3 ounce

3/4 cup chopped yellow onions, about 3 ounces

2 tablespoons chopped shallots, about 3/4 ounce

3 to 4 large cloves garlic, peeled

3 half-dollar-size coins ginger, each about 1/4-inch thick

10 to 12 dried chile de arbols, stems removed

1/4 cup + 1-3 tablespoons canola oil, as needed

3 tablespoons unsalted butter

1 bay leaf

1/2 cup heavy cream

1 1/4 cups low-sodium chicken broth

4 teaspoons tomato paste

-- Kosher salt, to taste

2 to 2 1/2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken thighs

1/2 pound carrots, peeled and cut into large dice

-- Naan for serving

Instructions: Have ready a small bowl. Place the curry in a small, dry skillet over low heat, stirring frequently until toasted and aromatic, 30-60 seconds. To avoid burning the curry, quickly turn it out of the skillet into the bowl.

Place the toasted curry, onion, shallots, garlic, ginger, chiles and 1/4 cup oil in a mini food processor and puree into a fine paste (or pound into a paste using a mortar and pestle), adding more oil as needed to make the mixture slightly loose.

Scrape the mixture into a medium-large pot over medium-low heat and cook, stirring frequently, until fragrant, about 5 minutes.

Add the butter and bay leaf. Continue cooking, stirring occasionally, until the mixture is moderately brown and caramelized, 5-8 minutes, making sure to not scorch the bottom of the pot.

Add the cream, chicken broth, tomato paste and salt to taste. Simmer until the curry "breaks" and the oil has separated from the rest of the mixture, about 45 minutes. Taste and add more salt if needed.

Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 350°.

Place the chicken thighs and carrots into a 9- by 13-inch baking dish and pour the curry sauce over. Cover with foil and bake until the chicken is very tender, about 1 hour.

Remove from the oven. Let cool somewhat, then skim off some of the excess oil, if desired. Serve with the naan.

If made ahead, cool to room temperature; then refrigerate. Skim off some of the excess oil, then reheat in a 350° oven.